Jaipur is the main
town in the desert state of Rajasthan (Land of Kings). There were many kings,
forts and in the past, much warfare. Ram said that Jaipur and Kerala are the
smart states: they're branding themselves to tourists as destinations, while
other states try to squeeze the most money from whatever tourists happen to
come. We stayed in a government-built Tourist Hotel, which was half a step up
from the usual biker-grade rooms we'd gotten.

The
old part of Jaipur is known as the Pink City. There's also a new part with broad
avenues and big buildings, most of them government offices, which seems fundamentally
flawed to American eyes. Ram usually squeezed local prices out of reluctant
vendors. I got Rajasthani textiles here for Christmas presents, and the system
broke down because I'd just spent half an hour picking them out, and was obviously
committed. Ram's strategy, in the abence of a price tag, was to demand "Where
did you get that (the price)?", then start picking at the rationale. The
textile guy answered (I found out later): "Three factors. Size. Quality.
White skin."

Hungry
kids (l) and dying dogs (far right), a familiar street scene in any Indian city.

Spice
merchant.

Ram
bought a suitcase load of a certain kind of gram flour that the Dwarahat ashram
had requested that we courier up. That part of the trip got scrubbed due to
the picture below.

This
is the greasy spoon where I got bacterial enteritis (see Delhi page for details).
It was the kind of deal where you wanted to wash your hands after handling the
menu. The food was good, though. The second night Ram said, "You really
enjoyed that meal last night, huh?" By now I knew Ram well enough to know
where this was headed. "Sure, let's go back." I think I got e. coli
the first night and giardia the second--or was it the other way around?

Why
as I eating here in the first place? Ram kept disappearing for an hour evenings.
I got him to fess up that he was going to yellow-zone South Indian restaraunts.
Knowing that 80% of travelers get sick in India, and having a friend who got
enteritis in a 5-star, I decided to eat wherever Ram ate. It took a week or
so before I got bit. Even though the coliformies took three days out of the
trip, I lost 10 lb and my cholesterol dropped to 40 points.

Or
maybe it was this restaraunt at the train station. Ram held that train station
restaraunts were safe; when we got to Delhi, I met up with a friend from Oz
who spends several months each year with his elderly parents. Devinder said
" You ate at train stations? Oh my God, don't you read the newspapers?"

This was the only
snake charmer I saw. He's a fake though: after the performance he seized the
cobra fearlessly by the head, and Ram confirmed it had been defanged.

I
included this picture to show the sugar cane juice press on the right. These
are common on the streets, but I never tried it. They all failed the <1 fly
per cc test.